Is Kohring a fox in the henhouse?

Spectrum, by Mary Barrett

Having Rep. Vic Kohring work on a bill that says local governments (i.e. Mat-Su Borough) have every right to regulate coal-bed methane production and which would strengthen protections for property and water supplies is like allowing the fox to guard the henhouse.

First of all, his law from the last session, the infamous House Bill 69, allows the Department of Natural Resources, which is under pressure from the Murkowski administration to promote and facilitate drilling, to override any local ordinances that the Mat-Su Borough might develop to protect its residents. Furthermore, Rep. Kohring crafted this legislation in consultation with Evergreen because local regulations are purportedly too cumbersome and costly to industry. Well, that depends on your point of view. If those cumbersome regulations are going to protect my well, I'm all for them. If Kohring truly cared about the Mat-Su Borough and the property rights of Mat-Su residents, he would repeal HB 69. Fat chance.

Secondly, how is he going to strengthen protections when there are absolutely no regulations in place? We don't need vague language that serves as pablum to mollify the public so that he can get re-elected next year. First we need baseline data, relating to the specific geology of the Mat-Su region, on the location of aquifers, how they are recharged, how methane travels within the coal seams and whether that gas when interrupted by a well can leak to private wells contaminating them or go to the surface and cause explosions. We then need enforceable, specific regulations that deal with the concomitant sequelae of drilling such as proliferation of roads, noisy compressors, increased traffic, impact on wildlife and hunting habitat, etc.

Finally we need an emergency contingency plan in place prior to drilling to prevent another Exxon Valdez disaster. Rep. Ogan may call me a "chicken-little naysayer," whatever that means, but the Exxon Valdez did happen because the state had no emergency contingency plan in place.

Also, Rep. Kohring has indicated that coal-bed methane drilling by providing jobs will decrease vandalism, will keep the brightest Alaska youth from leaving Alaska for the Lower 48 and will enrich the coffers of the government by their taxes. It sound like a snake oil remedy -- too good to be true -- that coal-bed methane will cure all our woes. The probable reality is that there won't be many jobs for Mat-Su residents because Evergreen will import their own specialized crew; I met some of them at their booth in the state fair.

Furthermore, I doubt the vandals that tear up soccer fields with their ATVs will have the qualifications required to work at Evergreen. I doubt that the brightest youth will forego a Lower 48 college education to work at a low level job at Evergreen, if available. Lastly, I don't think the taxes Evergreen might pay, after we have cut their costs by reducing regulatory oversight, is worth the cost to our lands, both private and public, for Evergreen's profit which is, of course, the bottom line.

Rep. Kohring is an idealogue whose sole mission is to limit government and taxes, conveniently forgetting that he is in the government and, incidentally, uses the most per diem of any legislator. However, if government agencies such as the Department of Environmental Conservation don't have money to pay investigators, how are those agencies going to enforce regulations to protect our wells from contamination and/or drying up? Essentially, Kohring wants to limit government so that industry whose bottom line is profit, not people, can operate at a lower cost, unimpeded by regulations that protect the public and their environment, clean air and water. Because of his rigid adherence to his ideology, Rep. Kohring has not demonstrated the creative thinking needed to ensure that our government has the tools to work with Evergreen and the many companies that will follow so that the industry will "do it right" with regulations and oversight in place.

I would like two things: a moratorium on drilling until there are regulations, not of Kohring's design, but with the input of scientists and the public, and, for the voters to throw this fox out of the henhouse in 2004.

Mary Barrett is a Palmer resident.